Really 'Real' Signs of Spring

A café facing the Place Dupleix in the
15th.

Paris 'Peace Wall' Inaugurated

by
Ric Erickson

Paris:- Monday, 3. April 2000:- Since the 36-hour
peep-show preview of spring early last week, there have
been 10 days of constant winds from the northwest or
northeast bringing the sort of weather I wouldn't want to
write about and you wouldn't wish for a Paris visit.

I write a bit more about the weather because I live in
Paris and can easily get out to feel it. On Sundays, I go
out for a café before doing anything else. On the
way out, I look straight up from the courtyard at the
sky.

This doesn't show more than a limited rectangle of
space. Out on the street I get a canyon-view of east and
west, and at the avenue, I can see it all.

Yesterday, the avenue's trees had a green fuzz on them;
their leaves are pushing their way through crusty winter
protection and they are just starting to show a green
screen. In my apartment's protected courtyard, the leaves
are well-advanced.

Here is the silly little car that
won't go away, again.

While noticing this, it occurred to me that I am going
through a year of seasonal 'firsts.' First summer in Paris
last year, first fall in Paris and first winter in Paris;
overlapping at the moment with the coming first spring in
Paris.

Now it is my first 'April in Paris.' I think I am going
to have to live through this before I will be able to get
poetic about it and start writing lyrics.

My 24 other 'Aprils in the Paris region' don't remind me
of much - other than winter keeping a tight grip with its
cold fingers until after a bitter last blast around
Easter.

The memory of this is so strong that seeing the apparent
opposite of this yesterday around noon, makes it worth a
mention. 'April in Paris, la la -la-la,' and I guess I
should make the rest up even if it has already been done -
by good writers.

Le Mur Pour la Paix

If my memory serves me correctly, this '2000 In Paris'
item was inaugurated in pouring rain last Monday by the
President of France, Jacques Chirac. But there were large
political events at the time - so all I have is a memory of
a short TV-news clip - and the other 'events' are on this
week's Au Bistro page.

The 'Peace Wall' is installed on the Champ de Mars, near
the Ecole Militaire. This project is the idea of Clara
Halter, and it is supposed to represent the universal
desire for peace.

Thus the word 'peace' is all over it, written in
multiple languages. The central corridor of the
nine-metre-high structure has a multitude of screens, which
display 'peace' messages from around the world, received
via the Internet.

You are also supposed to be able to place your own
'peace' message on the temporary monument. When I visited
it on Friday, between showers, a number of people were
doing this. Kids were also copying the word 'peace' on
drawing tablets.

A bit like the giant 'hourglass' in the Jardin des
Plantes, this '2000 In Paris' structure is
supposed to make you reflect on its meaning and what it
means to you.

The exercise of the passage from one century to the
next, from one millennium to the next, is something to
think about.

In the purest form of philosophy, you can think anything
you want. In this sense, this monument is not here to do
your thinking for you. It is just supposed to bump your
brain off its usual preoccupations - to take a moment to
consider some larger 'universal' ideas.

The 'Strange
Email Addresses' Case

There has been no resolution to the problem of email
bouncing back - as being 'undeliverable' - to certain
Metropole readers. But by mentioning it here - 'on the Web'
- Mathilda and Fred Daniel in South Africa got the message
that replies via email to them were not being
delivered.

Not that it sheds any light on what probably is some
technical problem - the results of some email exchanges on
this 'case' are the subject of the email feature in this
week's issue.

Veteran Internet users will know that the Internet is a
very complicated worldwide network, that depends on a
very big lot of software co-operation between tens of
thousands of different machines, located all over the
place.

A young boy copying the word 'peace' written
in several languages and scripts.

Messages routinely make incredibly complicated circuits
through the Internet maze, to get from the sender to the
destination. Sometimes, one little 'dot' too many, or out
of place, throws the message off the route and it ends up
stuck in Internet limbo.

Even if 'undeliverable,' the machines are programmed to
return the message to the sender, usually with the
optimistic comment that 'they' will 'keep trying for five
days.'

This is not mere PR blah-blah text. The Internet does
keep on trying, even while you are asleep.

The server-lady, Linda Thalman, has told me she
routinely gets an average of 40 to 60 'bounces' every time
she mails her Paris
In Sites newsletter. This is a problem that keeps her
awake.

Café Metropole Club's 25th Session

The 25th weekly meeting of the 'Café Metropole
Club' came off with considerable excitement - for me - last
Thursday. You can read about it on last week's 'Club 'Report'' page.

For a few weeks I announced here that the last
Thursday's meeting 'report' would be re-run on this week's
'Club News' page. This was an idea I had because I wasn't
sure that regular issue readers were looking up the
'Update' on Thursdays or hitting the link above, to look it
up now - or doing neither.

Strictly speaking, the last club meeting 'report' is an
'almost live Update' to last week's issue of Metropole. But
it is also part of last week's events in Paris, and that is
what this Monday's issue of Metropole is about.

If this is confusing to you; it is equally confusing to
me. Maybe I should drop the weekly-issue notion of
Metropole and just make everything an 'Update,' to go
online whenever Paris is in the mood.

This Was Metropole One Year Ago:

Issue 4.14 - 5. April
1999 - The Café Metropole column was headlined:
- 'Surprise Easter In Paris.' 'Au Bistro' had 'Lost' News
Isn't Here.' This issue had two features, entitled 'Not
Finding Paris' Oldest Tree' and 'Model Salon: On Land, On
Sea, In the Air: In Scale.' This issue's 'Paris' Scene'
had 'When in Rome, Do Paris.' There were four 'Posters
of the Week' as usual and Ric's Cartoon of the Week was
captioned 'No 10,000 Lira Notes Please.'

This Was
Metropole Two Years Ago:

Issue 3.14 - 6. April
1998 - The Café Metropole column was headlined
'Papon Trial Finally Winds Up.' The 'Au Bistro' column was
titled 'Le Pen Loses Civil Rights; Is Fined.' This issue
had four features! They were 'Not the Cheapest Bargins I've
Seen - Rue d'Alésia,' 'In South Paris In the Rain -
Rue d'Alésia,' ''Nova:' 10 Francs - 'Generation-X'
on the Cheap' and 'Suburbs - A Lost Weekend in the
Village.' There were four 'Posters of the Week' and Ric's
Cartoon of the Week was captioned 'Watercolors.'

The
Metropole Paris Countdown to 31. December 2000:

Here is the 14th issue of the year and I haven't
received any complaints about Metropole's all-new and
whiter-than-white, fabulously stupendous count-down. Yet. I
don't think anybody reads this, but I can't prove it
because nobody has written to say they don't.

This new countdown will last only 366 days, minus the 79
days already gone. The official reason for doing this is to
give the Tour Eiffel a new chance to 'get it right' - and
for a leap year it ought to. So many count-down fans missed
shouting 'Zéro' on Friday, 31. December 1999 when
Paris' countdown clock gave up. There is no 'unofficial'
reason, but if necessary I'll invent one.